The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1919. THE TAXATION PROBLEM.

Taihape Daily Times, 11 March 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1919. THE TAXATION PROBLEM.

(With wbiels is incorporated The T&ihape Po«t end. WalroMtt" Nows).

The attention of our farming com- j munity lias been directed on several occasions to the subject of future taxation. It is generally understood that there is to be an cnormouse increase of taxation, in fact, our political leaders cannot be charged with leaving the country in any doubt upon that subject, but no teection of the community seems willing to admit that its burdens will be increased. For soms unaccountable reason neither manufacturers, traders or farmers think it probable that the increased demand for the money to pay bills arising out ,of the war will add much to the weight they at present carry- Writers on the subject of after-war taxation arc displaying an ominous unanimity i of thought about taxation, and it is J cause for serious consideration of i farmers and land owners that all ex-

press a precisely similar opinion about what the land will have to provide. All these economists are shouting in the ears of the world that there must be more production, and still more production. The vital need for increased production is not peculiar to Australia and New Zealand, people of all countries are clamouring for every acre of land being cultivated to its utmost productive limit. For two years Cabinet, Parliament. Press and people of this Dominion have besu iterating and reiterating the necessity for production, and yet the very reverse is still being suicidally practiced. Clear thinking people are marvelling at the insane indifference to the call for production, and some are telling the people that increased' tax-

ation -will fall like a bolt from the blue, and bring in its train hardships that under clearer foresight might have been avoided. Surely those who own the land and those engaged in trade, finance and shipping have not ceased to realise that it is upon them the increased burden will fall; that money cannot be levied per capita, for we have indisputable and irrefutable evidence that the bulk of the masses of the people are unable to bear one penny of the needed increase and maintain anything like the present standard of living. In New Zealand the position of the people seems to be hopeless; arbitration courts make new awards increasing wages to-day and to-morrow that incrcas is swallowed up by the bread, flour, and general cereal vulture. Commonsense must be brought to bear, if nothing more, upon this - cost of living question, which outrages all economic tenets. New Zealand has become a nation of profiteers, every little tinpot huckster; every twopenny half penny pettifogging baud to mouth purveyor of small things; every pedler the people have hitherto trusted, instead of standing by the people, have been hoodwinked by the profiteers handling bigger things into joining hands in exploiting the people, and they are in their puny trading intelligence making a disgusting exhibition of themselves. The com- ! bined Press of the whole world can-

not persuade the masses to remain calm and refrain Ifrttm poliehevism while something a thousand times worse than Bolshevism is being ruth-

lessly practised upon them. We say worse than Bolshevism, because it is the father and precursor of Bolshevism. So extreme has the' position

of the masses became that it is doubtful whether they will not rise against the present almost imposible situation, not waiting for any increase of indirect taxation. In practice It has worked out that for every shilling of increased wages the cost of living has gone up fifty per cent more, taken

averagcly, until wages will only purchase about half what they did before the war. These are facts that have to be seriously dealt with, not a mythical something that can be for long thrust out of consideration. The day of straightening out the national finaance is drawing near, and as money can only be taken from where it is, let there be no misconception about where the will fall heaviest. No plausibility about capital being required for this or that will Stand against the nation's requirements, the money will have to be forthcoming. Land-dummyism will receive a shock, for no land will be allowed to remain in idleness, because sisters, cousins and aunts who dummy it do not know how to do anything with it. And all other nations and peoples are similarly situated. That fertile writer on economic questions, Mr. Upton Sinclair, writing in his magazine, States the great truth that '"the world's first demand is for food." He continues: "We shall need food, not merely for America, but for the disorganised countries of ; Europe. So the first thing to be done is to pass a tax on laud values, which will wipe out the profits of speculation and set free the idle acres both in city and country. • • ■ land-

values tax would provide the Government with vast sums of' mdhey and also tracts of land. Just las today we are rushing our forces to build ships, so, after the war, we must rush our forces to the land; under the best expert advice huge gardens must be laid out, with temporary barracks, and, later on, comfortable homes for the workers. The city land must be used to s'et )np public markets, at which this food can be sold at cost. Cheap food means that the wages we flay become real wages—instead of being swallowed up by landlords and speculators .and middlemen, as happens at present. Real wages will mean that labour will be contented, instead of jpcrpH'-aily discontented, as at present, organising strikes and tlius disorganising production. This world-wide famous; economist Alearlv discovers the future of huckster-

I ing profiteers. He predicts that ' the masses will have cheap food so that the wages received will be real wage.?', not given to. !bte dishonestly snatched back by profit thieves. He. says the huckstering •leeches must go and public markets must be established where no thief ! .stands 'behind the counter. • Uhe j'.ofil wages will! then "Tak- labour ! contented But Upton Sinclair is j only one of the huge number of I economists who are telling of what | j the lear luture fruust bring V'orth. They state, in not precisely similar words, that as the oppression of Czardom in Eussia produced Bolshevism, so will the oppression of profiteers, I big and little, invoke that retribution that will come as a sequence to their dishonest and callous practices. There will come an industrial and social revolution, peaceful or otherwise, in ! which the mean, contemptible, huckI storing profiteer will for ever be eli- ! ruinated. Tiny brains and inert in-

! telligences arc incapable of understanding the situation and of reading the lessons of tile times, and when the unsuspecting lash if alls the yellow streak will strongly bo in evidence. New' Zealand wool and meat 1 producers cannot, in all com ' mon honesty, be classed among j profiteers; they may be e'arn- | ing huge profits, but it must be un- | derstood that they are actually giving j Hack a portion of what was offered j them for their products. The vital ! error that wool and meat producers i are making is, one of omission, not | :ne of homniLssion. Thpir failure ! to agitate for the immediate launching of a "more production'' camI paign is going to result in an ap- ' pareni,ly unsuspected Vtter vixppr"I once. We see reflected in the de-

liberations in all countries the coming increase of taxation on land values, for it U world-widcly evident that, tliis is iht« only practicable method >st accusing land-owners to the hopelessness of present systems; the only sure and practicable way to secure more production and still more production, which must be to save the peoples of. the world from starvation and revolution. For two years wo have had this great need impressed upon us, and we have done worse than nothing to achieve something, earning thfe consequences, whatever they may be. In New Zealand, Australia, B'ritain, all Europe, and all America, there is the same cry for more production and there is the strongest evidence that a tax on land values will fall on farmers in this Dominion with brutal harshness before they will agree to any reasonable course in bridging the world's greatest difficulty.